How I Became a Christian My Grandmother was born in 1884 in a log cabin in Decatur, Illinois. Shortly after her birth her mother died o...

Saturday, October 18, 2014

The Glory of God Leaves the Temple

The Glory of God Leaves the Temple

Ezekiel 10

The sight is very sad. The Spirit of God is departing from the temple
in Jerusalem.The cloud of God’s glory fills the inner
court and then slowly moves out. (Ezekiel 10:3) As Ezekiel watches “the glory of the Lord
rises from above the cherubim and moves to the threshold of the temple. The
cloud fills the temple, and the court is full of the radiance of the glory of
the Lord.” (Ezekiel 10:4)The year is
587 B.C. and the Spirit of God is leaving the sanctuary - the place where He
has been among the people for hundreds of years.

God’s shinning glory stops and stands over the threshold of
the door as Ezekiel watches. (Ezekiel 10:4) And then after a long pause the
cloud of glory rises from the threshold and with the whirling wheels moves
further away over the cherubim.(Ezekiel
10:18) “And immediately the cherubim
lifted up their wings.” (Verse 19)“The
cherubim and the glory of God above them stood at the door of the east gate of
the Lord’s house, ready to depart and leave the house.” (Ezekiel 10:19)

With many pauses and stops the Spirit of the Lord covered
with light reluctantly departs from the people He loves. He doesn’t want to go but He has been replaced
by the idols – the foreign gods. Is the Spirit
of the Lord waiting to see if any one might care that He is leaving and repent
and ask Him to return?God removes by
degrees away from a provoking people. He
would quickly return in mercy if they would care and turn from their idols and
worship Him.

But most of the
people of Jerusalem
have thrown away the God of their fathers and they don’t care.They are busy worshipping idols and
sacrificing their children to them! They
have even brought their idols into God’s holy temple and the priests and the
people are all worshipping the idols in the very temple that had been dedicated
to the Lord! Violence and bloodshed are
everywhere in the streets of Jerusalem
and the poor have been forgotten. Nearly
all of the people in the city have given up truth and goodness for cruelty and
evil!God promises Ezekiel that judgment
will follow soon!

But there are a few
people – a remnant - still left in Jerusalem
who are upset by all of the blood shed and idol worshipping. These few men and women want to return to the
God of their fathers and they weep over their beloved city because it has changed
and become such an evil place.

God shows Ezekiel in
a vision that He is sending a man - a mediator - to go through Jerusalem and put a mark on each person who
wants to return to God.(Ezekiel
9:4)Then when judgment does come to Jerusalem, the few people
left who are marked and who still love God will be spared.A remnant will be left to start anew and
carry on.God’s judgment (most of the
people will die) will be healing since
it will enable the remnant – the ones left behind who still love God and truth-
to recover their faith and to begin
again to build their lives free from the idol worshipping and violence that has
been all around them.

Does this Bible story from so long ago have any relevance
for us today? This story about God’s
Spirit leaving the temple with judgment following?What do you think?Today God’s Holy Spirit still abides with his
people, but in a different way!This
ancient story from the Old Testament happened nearly 600 years before Jesus
came and died on the cross for our sins.

And later when Jesus,
our Mediator, came, He changed everything!Jesus left his Spirit for each of his followers. (Acts 1) Like the men and women of old in Jerusalem who
still loved God were “marked” by the mediator so they would be saved when
judgment came down; today each of us who love God have also been “marked” by
receiving the Spirit of Jesus, our Mediator, so that we will be saved in the
final Judgment..Scripture says: “Do not
grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were “marked” (sealed) for the day of
redemption.”(Ephesians 4:30)

Scripture says that
our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit!And God’s Spirit lives in our bodies, if we open our lives to Him.Scripture says: “Do you not know that your
body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God:…”
(1 Corinthians 6:19)The Bible says that
today God’s Spirit lives within each person who believes in Him whereas before
Jesus died and rose – in Old Testament times – God’s Spirit lived in the temple
– a building built with human hands.Today we don’t have to go to the church or the temple, as worshippers
did in Old Testament times, to worship God.We can worship Him anywhere since our bodies are His temples and His
Spirit is right here in us!

After God’s Spirit and glory left the temple in ancient Jerusalem the people could
tell the difference.Life wasn’t the
same, something was missing!When the
people of Jerusalem
started having problems they asked their prophets for a vision and they went to
the temple priests who worshipped idols and asked them for understanding and
for the law of God, but Scripture says that the prophets and priests had
nothing to give the spiritually hungry people.And the elders who always gave good advice also lost their gift of
counsel!(Ezekiel 9:26b)It’s scary!Without God’s Spirit life goes flat!The spark of life is gone!There
is no there there!

King David knew the importance of having God’s Spirit with
him!Once when David had sinned
grievously he repented and prayed to God and begged that God not take his
Spirit away from him.(Psalm 51:11) As a boy David had watched as King Saul had
turned away from God and as God’s Spirit had departed from him.(1 Samuel 16:14) And David had been there to see how troubled
King Saul had become when he no longer had the guidance and help of the Spirit
of God with him.Even though David
messed up many times in his life, he loved God and really wanted God’s Spirit
to guide him and be with him.

It would seem that the Holy Spirit does more for us than we
realize!Scripture tells us that the
Spirit holds us together and keeps us on the right path.(And all that time we thought we were doing
that all by ourselves!)

Chapter one of Romans
says that when we “exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve
the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom.1:25) and when we insist on our own way and fight
and kick at God long enough, God finally lets us have what we insist we want. If
we rebel long enough God’s Spirit finally stops holding onto us and stops
moving us along on the right paths and lets us walk where we want to go even if
that is a bad place. A long list of sins
follows - sins that God’s Spirit was holding us back from. (Romans
1:26-32)A list of wrong ways and bad
places and sins follow in the first chapter of Romans. Sins that the Spirit of God was holding us
back from falling into.Scripture says
that the Spirit of God can give us over to a debased mind if we keep insisting
and rebelling against Him. (verse 28)It
doesn’t sound pretty!

It’s our call to be guided by the Spirit or not. -Like when God’s
Spirit left the temple in ancient Jerusalem
when the people rebelled and stopped worshipping Him, today God’s Spirit can
leave us humans when we rebel and stop worshipping Him.Scripture says that the Holy Spirit will not
always strive with humans.(Genesis
6:3)God would not force his Way onto
the people in Jerusalem
long ago and He will not force his Way onto us today against our will.

But we lose so much when reject and grieve the Spirit until
He sadly leaves!Scripture says that the
Spirit helps us do what we need to do!Sets
us on the paths that we need to take!Guides and teaches us to say what we need to say! Gives us joy and peace and faith and truth and
a gentle spirit! (Galatians 5:22)

How many times have
we prayed for and received help in doing a job that we didn’t have the strength
to do by ourselves? And Scripture says that the Spirit gives us strength and
upholds us. (Isaiah 41:10) The gifts and
blessings the Spirit brings us just keep on coming!They are new every morning!Having the Spirit in our lives is having the
good life!